Bethany McClean’s article in Slate questions Goldman Sachs’ deal to invest $450 million in Facebook and to raise another $1.5 billion from its own investors, raising the question: just how fair is this?
In one sense what Goldman Sachs is doing is nothing new. During the crash of 1929, we saw these same sorts of behaviours by the key financial institutions of the time. Asset prices were low and the banks were calling the shots in terms of ownerships. However, while eighty years ago the banks tended to be the owners themselves, today banks are acting as agents on behalf of their own wealthy clients as well as being owners themselves. The situation is absolutely and distinctly unfair.
The position that we are in today is that we just do not have free markets. We have open markets that are open to people with [...]

Today it was announced that the seven highest ranking executives at Goldman Sachs will not be taking their bonuses this year . It’s an good move and will generate some positive publicity for the firm, especially because they announced their decision before other banks and before bonus season starts in earnest. Likewise, such a move was almost a necessity given the potential for public outcry if multiple executives were receiving bonuses worth over $50 million each after the company was one of the 9 banks that shared a $150 billion cash injection earlier this fall.
This move reminds me of some of that activity that Linda Lee Davies, Nada and I found in our recent book Leading for Success . One of the seven sides of great leaders we identified was ‘finding ways through.’ In the chapter dedicated to that subject, we said: [...]